Good morning again. Thought I would do this update post before I forget some of my thoughts about it. This one seemed to demand "old school" methods of blocking in the darks first and then adding lighter planes. Blending will come in at the final form stages. Maybe. Although most probably by sections as I have the conversation with the painting. As always, my descriptive progress posts are aimed at the emotional part of creating an object of beauty. I learned the how techniques of color, form definition and yada-yada a long time ago in college and through out life experiences. My posts are not about technical applications of material. They are about the passion of and for the creation of those objects of beauty. Some get it, some do not. For those who get it, I am glad to have been of assistance. Now that being said, I have to be careful with this painting. It reminds me of when I first met my wife 47 something years ago. So full of fire, spit and independence. That is the reason the eyes will be the last part of this painting to be completed. I have to be sure the form is correct before the appearance of life is imbued.

Good afternoon. Have been busy with life business stuff and contemplating the next moves on this painting. Got some of the problems worked out mentally and let the other ones appear on the painting and then adjusted the colors, values, tones and things like that. Hestia is finished. Moving on to Hemera. There are nine progress posts in this entry. Some are not so much different from the previous post and some are.

Thank you so much for sharing your process, It's so amazing to see how the whole thing is taking shape. To me, it's always a great pleasure to actually see how certain works are done. I think it's really interesting to see that.

Thank you Laurie. Like I said in the other post, I am going to work on Hemera today. You know, these progress posts also helps me produce the painting. Sometimes I get so involved with the activity of painting I forget the reasons I am doing it in a certain way, the problems I have set up for myself, the overall concept of the painting or collection of paintings and how to maintain the goal of creating an object of beauty.

Case in point is this collection of goddesses. The rendition of these goddess paintings is far from what our culture perceives as depictions of gods. There are no halos, no ethereal flying about in the sky and no robes with on the top of mountains backgrounds. The heads are highlighted with background light coming from behind the forms fading darker the further away from the head forms to the edges of the painting. Painting the background this way captures the head as the center of attention. Using the colors typical of the elements that the goddesses control helps the viewer to see the earth tones with Gaia, the flame colors with Hestia, the skies of Hemera and the water of Amphitrite. Hopefully. The color and style of the hair also helps identify the goddess. Brown and muddy for Gaia, fiery values of red for Hestia, shiny golds and yellows for Hemera and slick wet blacks and browns for Amphitrite.

The ancient Greeks built temples and statues of and for their gods and goddesses. Both were always beautiful. Even Hades is represented with a beautiful statue. They also believed that their gods lived among them as well as on Mount Olympus. Their gods interacted in and interfered with them both in love and war. That is why these portraits are of beautiful young women. At least that is the concept in my mind. I think that anyone who knows about ancient Greek mythology will see the goddess connections when they read the title on each painting. At least I hope so. We shall see. In the meanwhile I am having fun watching them appear on canvas.

Good afternoon. There are eight progress posts on this entry. The first post is showing the base flesh tone. The flesh tone was done first so I could paint around the form making the background. It just felt like it should be done that way on this one. The remaining seven posts show how the different color fields are laid in and blended step by step until the background is complete. Where ever Hemera goes she brings the sky, so, I thought I would leave the corners in various degrees of darkness.

Thank you so much for sharing this, Carl. Unfortunately I don't know too much about Greek mythology, so it was interesting for me to read that. Especially the fact how beautiful gods and goddesses were depicted. I'm always open to learn new things, I'm glad that I joined this forum! Keep posting your progress, to me, it's very fascinating to see how a picture is completed. I haven't drawn in quite a long time. I probably 'lost' a lot of my skills and I don't have the confidence in my own abilities anymore.

Good morning Laurie. Thank you for your comments. You are a real cheerleader. Your comments inspire me to finish this self-imposed project. Now may I inspire you?

Science stuff first. Yes, you have lost a lot of your skills by not drawing for a long time. However, they can be recovered. They are just asleep, so to speak. The development of brain cells is directly dependent upon the frequency of use. Athletes practice and practice to gain what they call muscle memory. In fact, it is that part of the brain that identifies with muscle control. The same for any professional be it in music, acting or drawing. Additionally, there is a lot of published research about how learning and re-learning changes and develops new brain cells. The new brain cells actually changes a persons behavior and method of thinking. Exciting facts are they not. A professor does not have the physical capability to think like a longshoreman. And the longshoreman cannot physically think like a professor. I think that was most effectively displayed in the movie "My Fair Lady" with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. Once retrained, Elisa could not return to her old life. She no longer belonged because she did not see the world as she once did.

Now, personal history stuff. When I was in the marines over a half century ago. I rather like saying it that way, makes me sound older and wiser than I actually am or feel. Moving on. I would draw eyes, ears, noses, mouths, hands, feet, bodies and full portraits in artists sketch books. I had quite a few of them, 10 to 15 or somewhere in that neighborhood. On the day of my release they were stolen while I was going through the discharge procedures. At the time I was hurt and angry of course. But, I had gained the ability to draw well. I owned something that could not be stolen. This example is to encourage you to get a sketch tablet and just draw anything you like, again, again, and again. Fill that book and start another one. You will have the documentation you need to show your progress. You will start seeing things differently with more acuity, attention to more detail will occur, and understanding of concepts will deepen. You will start gaining strength in making decisions and being able to execute them. You will be your own cheerleader and become involved again instead of sitting on the sideline wishing you could get back in the game so to speak.

Science is on your side and I have given you an example and a concrete method of how to obtain your goal. Do you really want to gain what you have lost and then improve? What say you my dear?

Good morning. Worked on the hair yesterday. Doing the shadows or dark sections first so that the lighter to lightest strands will appear as rivulets of blond light, hopefully. In this case it would be a struggle to do the lighter colors first as the white canvas would interfere with seeing how the rivulets should lay where as the darker background will support the ability to see how the yellows and whites should be painted in. There are three progress posts.

Good afternoon. No posts today. Maybe tomorrow. Don't know. You know how I am always talking about the passion of creating a painting? Well I am having a temper fit right now. I know I have a 6 hour mental limit on painting before I can no longer do it. I thought it was with the fine details of subtle shading and line control. Well it is not! I can't even see mass area tonal changes. I did the face OK to a point then butted up against the 6 hour block. So, I decided I would go to the chest mass shape tones with shadows, etc.

I produced visual crap, crap, crap! I can enjoy painting only 6 hours a day and the rest is mundane shuffling around doing chores, no thinking there, or oh yes, we can go to the store. Tiring. Let's see, I can watch TV and get my blood boiling watching the news. I don't want to say anything else related to what can be done with the other 18 hours in a day. Like I said, I am having a fit because of my physical limitations. !@#$%^&*() and )(*&^%$#@! anyway!

OK. So why am I sharing this? One, it is a bad thing to keep anger bottled up inside. Lots of research on that. Two, It is a form of expressing the passion I have spoken of. Three, it is calming to me to let other artists know we all are in the same boat so to speak about feelings of frustration and failure. Any artist who says they do not identify with this post is, well you know. Going to stop now and defrost something for dinner. Hum, a good steak always calms the savage beast.

Gee, I've never been frustrated when I've painted. Everything I do comes out exactly the way I wanted it to so I cannot relate to this post at all. Okay, so now that the lying is out of the way let's get real. Yeah, anyone who paints has gotten those, "God I suck! Why am I even doing this?!" moments. I'm sure even Leonardo Da Vinci angrily threw a few canvases out the villa window in Florence, Milan, or Rome. I know when something isn't working when it's just taking me too long to do. I finally have to admit that this is just no good. I don't chuck it out the villa window (I don't live in a villa in Italy), I just cover the hated piece in paint and start another right over it! Another interest is good to relieve the pressure. When not painting I enjoy tormenting my wife. I'm also a model railroader and I even play video games sometimes. Now, what's this physical limitation you speak (write) of?

Good morning. Well after my tirade yesterday I will be going back to work on Hemera. Wonder how far I will get. There are 5 developmental posts today including the last one I mucked up. The physical limitations that I mentioned apparently must now be explained. My brain must have a physical structural composition that seems to simply go brain dead in the area of working on the intense focus of critical and analytical thinking needed to paint subtle colors in shading, highlighting and shape formations. This brain function is similar to what happens when I read that 18 page essay on quantum mechanics. I understand everything up to page 14. Somewhere about halfway on page 15 I not longer understand anything the author is saying. I can feel my mind stop and then go blank. Frustrating. Just not smart enough. Same thing about the attention to detail and process issues in painting around the sixth hour. Just can't get past that physical limitation. Again, frustrating. Add getting or being old, I don't know which. I think I am getting old and I am told I am old. And, I have osteoarthritis. Somewhere around the fifth hour of work my hands start to singing, as in getting my attention in the pain area. My desire to continue overrides it until my brain virtually says, "OK, old boy, time to close shop because I quit for the day". When I worked for a living I could easily do 10 hours and push to 14 hours anytime necessary. Not so today. Again, frustrating. These days motivation far outstrips ability. Time to stop and move on. Time is wasting.

I did 5 progress posts to show in more detail the steps I took in this phase of the painting. Hope it is helpful to others.

Good afternoon. Well, only got two updates to post for today's work. Took me about 5 hours. Not much volume work done, but significant work was. Will address the over shadowing of the lower eye lashes later. Yesterday's tirade was expensive. Takes a day or two in order to gain emotional recovery. Side bar on that, just because I think it is worth sharing. When I was a correctional officer and an inmate was pumping himself up for resisting and ultimately be at full power for fighting mode I would yell or calmly, most of the time calmly say something totally off guard like "I see your shoe is untied", or "Did you know how handsome you are when you are angry?" Stuff like that. It would catch them off guard and they would look at me with an expression of complete puzzlement. I would then say, "Go get a drink of water. You need it." By that time they could not fight. Science stuff. Adrenalin can be summoned by the body in seconds. Confusing mental thought conflict can disrupt the pump of adrenalin in less than a second. The body cannot restart the adrenalin pump again for some minutes or even hours. Gave me plenty of time to deal with the issue without having to be combative. OK, moving on. Here at the posts for today. Have to take care of life business tomorrow so the odds of working are slim to none.

Always great to see your process. Always wondering 'How is he going to finish the picture?' With your works, I really cannot tell what you're planning to do next, which is fantastic. Her eyes are striking! I think those are my favorite part so far. I really appreciate that you're sharing bits of your life as well.

Good morning. No posts yet. Will see what happens today. Laurie, thank you for your comments, "Always wondering 'How is he going to finish the picture?' With your works, I really cannot tell what you're planning to do next".

Hah! Me too! Actually, there is no plan for the process. Of course there are certain steps that have to be done sequentially, like the choice of scale, the drawing before the painting and the background and base layers, but no real plan. While I know I am the one doing the work, I think of it as having a conversation with the painting. The painting tells me what it wants to become. I listen. We go back and forth discussing tones, blends, values, types of colors. When I am deep in the conversation there really is no word thought. I just watch it appear before me like a slow motion movie.

And thank you for your comments about sharing bits of my life as well. I know I don't have to and that in some circles it is considered unprofessional and "bad form". I don't see it that way. I think that if I critique a work of art or share information about how to create a work of art that I have a responsibility to the person or persons I am addressing to let them know why I think in a certain way. That is done with letting the other artists on this site know who I am. All of us have a personal life history that forms or influences our skills, knowledge and abilities. Hope this helps. Now if I could only paint better it would be a nice day.

Good afternoon. Got some work done today. There are seven progress posts. I wanted to share the development of the hair, nose and lips. Got lots of work left to do. Met my six hour shut down time. But, I think I got a lot done in those six hours.